


Autopilot

by nsmorig



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Critmas Exchange 2018, Friendship, Gen, Gift Fic, Monk Stuff, Platonic Relationships, Warlock Stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 08:46:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16850896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nsmorig/pseuds/nsmorig
Summary: Fjord sets his feet the way he’s seen Beau do and pushes forward again, manages to move the bag a little until he realises he’s pushed himself too far forward and has to grab at it to stop himself topping over.“Dude,” Beau says, exhausted-sounding and baffled. “How the fuck are you so good in a fight if you don’t know how to stand?”





	Autopilot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mocrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mocrow/gifts).



> hey, mocrow! i wound up writing a Molly&Caleb fic first, but that was a bit sadder than what you wanted, so I wrote you this as well. the molly-caleb fic will be up soon, and I may well add to this later, because it's fairly short, and you've given me Feelings about Fjord and Beau.

He’s not sure where Beau had found a punching bag in this shitty inn, but there it is, hanging from the rafters in her room, swinging a little on her makeshift hoist. She stands, hands on her hips and pale eyes narrow, as he tentatively makes a fist and swings. His balance is awful, and he knows just from the feeling that he’s doing something wrong, he doesn’t need her expression of disgust to tell.

 

He sets his shoulders forward to try again, but as he tries another punch she moves lightning-quick and very softly blocks it with an open palm.

 

“Dude.” She says, final and exhausted sounding. “The fuck.”

 

He shrugs. She steps in closer and re-arranges his fingers, and he unwinds them, tries to put them back in the places she put them. He wants to _learn_ this.

 

“First,” she says, with the kind of resignation that implies she’s heard and said this many times before, “If you put your thumb there, you’ll break it.”

 

He winces.

 

“Second, I have no idea what you were doing with your shoulders there, but don’t. Think about, uh . . .  I don’t suppose you know what Ki is?”

 

He shakes his head wordlessly, coping the motions she pulled his arm into.

 

“Right. Well. Think about the punch coming down your shoulder and into the target. You want to keep moving once you’ve hit it, follow through.”

 

The rafters creak as she sets the bag swinging and steps back with a sort of sheepish nod. “Like that.”

 

“Gotcha.”

 

He sets his feet the way he’s seen her do and pushes forward again, manages to move the bag a little until he realises he’s pushed himself too far forward and has to grab at it to stop himself topping over.

 

 _“Dude,_ ” she says again, use as exhausted but now baffled. “How the fuck are you so good in a fight if you don’t know how to _stand?_ ”

 

He shrugs, helpless. Words line up in his head, and he looks around for a glass of water while he tries to figure out which of them make sense.

 

“It’s . . . Ah, fuck, I don’t know. It feels, sometimes, like. It’s the sword, not me, in a fight, if you know what I mean.”

 

Beau hums. She smacks a couple more punches into the meat of the punching bag, and it rocks Fjord back where he’s holding it steady, but she’s not got her heart in it.

 

“The Cobalt Soul are big on instinct,” she says finally, voice low and slow as though she’s actually thinking about what she says before it comes out of her mouth.

 

She stops speaking again, and Fjord watches the little furrow between her eyes as she starts back in on the bag, watches as her movements speed up until she’s got her eyes closed as she ducks imaginary punches and spins into a fluid kick. She stops, barely breathing harder, and her eyes blink open. She looks a little dazed.

 

“Sometimes,” she says, “I wake up and I’m halfway through a kata.”

 

Fjord feels his face twist in confusion, and she rolls her eyes at him and drops into the stance he recognises from her morning stretches until he nods in understanding.

 

The bag swings like a pendulum as she launches another kick, this one a little slower and half as forceful. “There’s this state I used to get into when I was sparring, like I was somewhere back in my head and my body was doing the thinking for me. It won me a lot of fights, but I felt like if I spent too long like that, it’d be me forever, you know?”

 

She’s not looking at him, and he gets the feeling that this is just as hard for her as it is for him.

 

“Uh, no,” he says. “I mean, like, for me it’s more magic shit.”

 

She laughs lowly, and grabs for his glass of water. “Figures.”

 

“The bit about, ah, feelin’ like it ain’t you, though.” He swallows. “I get that.”

 

She steps back from the bag, and he gingerly brings his hands up again as she kicks at his feet until his weight is balanced to her satisfaction. A burn threads its way through his arms almost immediately as he starts again, and his knuckles sting after only a few punches, but this is important.

 

He’s not sure why, but he feels like it is.

 

“I don’t get like that anymore,” Beau says, still very quiet, and he puts his arms down; she raises an eyebrow at him, and he sighs and puts them back up.

 

“When I left the monastery I started trying not to do it. I’m not sure if I could, now.”

 

Between the _thwack_ of skin on leather he can hear her moving around, pushing his spine into position, once having to grab at his thumb again.

 

“I’m probably a shittier fighter ‘cause I won’t let it happen, but I don’t like feeling like I’m not in control.”

 

"D’y’know,” Fjord says slowly, breathing hard, “I’d _never_ have thought that about you.”

 

She murmurs a ‘piss off’ quietly, and he grins.

 

“You might be really fuckin’ shit at fighting without that creepy magic shit,” she says, “But if you don’t like it, you know, you don’t have to. Don’t make me say this again, ever, but I’d rather you be happy than us win every fight.”

 

He has to stop, then, and he’s not sure if it’s the ache in his muscles or shock.

 

“Holy _shit,”_ he says, after a long pause.

 

“Don’t make me repeat it, ‘cause I won’t.”

 

He turns back the the bag again, and has to shake his head.

 

“Thanks, Beau.”


End file.
